[The following is the second fragment of the script for "The Little Lebowski," a sequel to the Big Lebowski that thankfully was never made; parts of the proposed script were recovered by an associate at the Sepulveda Boulevard Kinkos in Van Nuys, CA, after a frazzled Ethan Coen rushed in to copy a small stack of typewritten pages, accidentally leaving several in the recycling bin. The first fragment is here. Note: if you have not seen the movie, this will not make any sense]

BOWLING PINSThere is the sound of pins scattering in the background noise of the bowling alley. The Dude is leaning his head against a pay phone set between the lockers and the men's room. Walter stands near him, staring down the barrel of a plastic Uzi submachine gun pointed at the screen of a shoot-em-up-style arcade game called 'Operation Wolf.' The Dude keeps entering numbers into the telephone.

DUDEWhat the fuck is wrong with me, I can never remember the code for my goddamn machine!

WALTERUm, might that not have something to do with all of that marijuana you've been smoking there, Dude? I'll tell you what, once my band of brothers in 'Nam started smoking that stuff, their short-term memories as well as their hand-to-hand-combat skills deteriorated. You think the fucking gooks were smoking dope down the tunnels with their rat balls and rice meat?

DUDEIt's not the pot, Walter. I'm pretty sure pot got all the brain cells it was ever going to take from me twenty years ago. I think I'm just getting old, man.

WALTER[screaming at video game] Goddamn it I shot that last goddamn canister of life potion! [turns to the dude] Well, it's about time you got a cell phone anyways.

DUDEWe've had this conversation, Walter. The Dude does not do cell phones.

WALTERAll I'm saying is that you don't have to know a fucking code to check your voicemail when you've got a fucking cell phone.

DUDEFirst of all, Walter, this is my answering machine, not voicemail. Second of all. . .well fuck it I can't remember what's second of all. See what I'm talking about?

WALTERWell, I still don't understand why a call from that fucking strumpet should take precedence over practice for the league quarterfinals.

DUDEWatch it, man, that's the mother of my son you're talking about.

WALTERSorry, Dude.

DUDEWalter, I'm just not in any position to turn down, you know, any vagina that comes my way. Until last month I hadn't been with a real woman for over two years. Not since that checker girl from Ralph's I met at Smokey's barbecue.

WALTERThat's nothing. Unless you count Suki down at the Tokyo Spa down on Lincoln Boulevard, I haven't been with a woman since 1987.

DUDEChrist, Walter. Well, anyway, the two last times I brought the kid back after my Saturday with him, well, you know, Maude and I, we've ended up sharing, you know, the physical act of love.

WALTERYou mean coitus?

DUDEThat's exactly what I mean, Walter.

WALTERWay to go, Dude! If you will it, it is no dream.

DUDEYeah, well, I don't think this has just been fun and games. I saw her doing that leg thing.

WALTEROh. I see. When we were married, Cynthia always wanted more than one kid.

DUDEDon't she and Marty Ackerman have two kids now?

WALTERShira and Ben, yeah, they're sweet kids.

DUDEShe named her daughter She-ra? Like the Princess of Power?

WALTERDude, you're such a shlemiel. Shira is the Hebrew word for 'song.'

DUDEOh. [dials again] I think I got it!

MAUDE'S VOICE[on the machine] Jeffrey this is Maude. I need for you to come up here this evening. I'm sending the driver. If he doesn't find you at home, I've instructed him to look for you at that odious bowling parlor you frequent. This is important Jeffrey. It is in regard to your son.

END SCENE

MAUDE'S LOFT

[Dude walks in humming Suzie Q., turns on a light, clearly now at ease in the unusual space. He walks over to the bar and fixes himself a White Russian after sniffing the carton of half-n-half.]

DUDEMaude? You here?

MAUDE [voice coming from the darkness of the cavernous space]I'm just finishing putting Egon to bed, Jeffrey, I'll be out in a minute. Make yourself a drink.DUDEYeah, uh, Maude, you know, I've been thinking about what's happened, um, the last couple of times I've come here. And I'm not really sure it's such a good idea.

[Maude steps out from a private room in one corner of the loft; she is wearing a bathrobe with cleavage indicating that it's all she's wearing]

MAUDEWhy, whatever do you mean, Jeffrey?

DUDEI mean, the sex.

MAUDEYou're not interested in sex?

DUDEIt's just. Well, Maude, it's just I'm not sure I'm ready to have another kid, man.

MAUDEWhoever said anything about having another child, Jeffrey?

DUDEI saw you doing, you know, that leg thing the last time, you know, while I was walking off to take a piss.

MAUDE[pauses] Right. It's true, Jeffrey. I do want another child. I would like to give little Egon a sister. He is nearly three-years old now and all of the texts I have been reading suggest that this the perfect age for him to have a sibling. Besides, having Egon hasn't turned out nearly as bad as you thought, has it?

DUDENo. I do actually kind of like the little guy. We do have some fun times. But something tells me that having two is just going to be a lot more work, man. A lot more of a strain on the Dude's lifestyle, you know what I'm trying to say.

MAUDEIf you won't help me, Jeffrey, I may be forced to find another source of semen. Or I might even pick out one of those baby girls next time I'm in Beijing. But I would prefer my children to fully share their genetic makeup. Dr. R. Trivers has suggested that the normal antipathies of sibling rivalry are tempered when the siblings share genes, providing an evolutionary motivation for love between them. I have been doing a great deal of reading about sibling relationships. All of my understanding is theoretical, of course, as I am an only child and want nothing more than to provide Egon with a sibling, thus sparing him the loneliness I knew as a child. Do you have any siblings, Jeffrey?

DUDEI have a sister. She's a lawyer in Atlanta.

MAUDEIs she older or younger?

DUDEOlder.

MAUDEVery good. You understand, don't you Jeffrey? I need you.

DUDEWell, I suppose it would require us to adhere to a pretty strict, uh, sex regimen, you know, to keep my testicles limber?

MAUDEAu Contraire, Jeffrey, I would ask that you abstain from any onanistic behaviors over the next several months. You must refrain from any 'servicing of yourself,' or 'jerking off' to use the parlance of our times. I need you to avoid 'any hand-to-gland combat,' and ask you to stop 'tickling your trout,' as it were.

DUDEUm, Maude, you know, that's a lot to ask of the Dude.

MAUDEActually, I don't care what you do with your rod or your johnson so long as you do not waste your ejaculate. So you can 'pound your pud' as much as you'd like, but please refrain from 'busting a nut' or 'tossing off' what I need you to have in full supply.

MAUDERegardless, Jeffrey, I expect the only place for you to shoot any of that sperm of yours these next few months is into my vaginal canal. And only when my OBGYN tells me that I might be ovulating.

DUDEMmmm. Sounds like fun.

MAUDEYes, well, also if you don't already I would ask you to start wearing boxer shorts.

DUDEClearly you do not know the Dude. The Dude does not do briefs.

MAUDEAnd now is not the time for him to start. And Jeffrey, how much actual marijuana do you smoke every day?

DUDEOK, let's not even go there. That is a battle I do not think you can win. Besides, man, I'm not even sure I want another kid. I've just got my new rug, you know, and. . .and my place is looking all together and I'm pretty comfortable with the arrangement we have now, man. The first kid really, you know, shook things up in old Duder's life as it is, you know, and I'm just afraid another one would. . .

MAUDELet me ease your fears, Jeffrey. I certainly wouldn't expect any more of your time with a second child than what you already give to the first, which is more than adequate. Those six hours each month are more than I expected, to be sure. And if I am lucky enough to give birth to a girl, Jeffrey, I would not mind it at if I could rear her alone. I would like to shield her from all patriarchal and paternal influence.

DUDEHuh. Why do you even want another kid? What about, uh, all those Achievers?

MAUDEYes, well, I want another of my own. [Maude rolls her eyes] Recently I was speaking with my father, and he told me that Brandt and his lover had adopted a baby girl, and he wanted me to bring Egon over there so we could all take a look at the poor thing. When we arrived and I held her in my arms for the first time I said to myself, "I have got to get another one of these." I have since been channeling all these maternal emotions into a new set of paintings using my bungee ceiling harness and menstrual fluid. You know, Jeffrey, I've made so many of these paintings I've had to farm out more menses blood from some women down in Tijuana. You are welcome to take a look at my paintings if you'd like.

DUDENo. Thank you.

MAUDEVery well. Another reason that I want to have another child now rather than later is that I look forward to ridding my home of all of these miserable plastic toys and furniture as soon as possible. I do wonder if I could get Assa Ashuach to design me some nursery furniture. I'm afraid he'd find me a bit tedious now that I've bred.

DUDEUh-huh.

MAUDEJeffrey, we certainly don't need to have sex tonight if you don't desire it. Relax, 'do a jay,' as you like to say. Finish your drink, I'll make you another. We could just talk.

[The Dude dutifully pulls a small joint out of his front-shirt pocket and Maude holds out an old-fashioned cigarette lighter. Maude then reaches for a drink next to the Dude, and her nipple slips out of her bathrobe. She doesn't notice it for a second, but when she does she coyly looks at him and covers it up. The Dude chokes on smoke a little]

DUDESo what do you want to talk about?

MAUDEJeffrey, have I ever showed you up close how the carpets match the drapes?

DUDEWhat are you talking about, man, the floor in here is all concrete. Oh. Right.

You wouldn't know it from the hundreds of stories on parenting issues he writes for Blogging Baby or from the sorts of things he writes around here, but there was a time when Dutch was scared shitless of becoming a parent. We were living in San Francisco, and every month when he heard me pull the tampon box out from under the sink it was as if the collective weight of a thousand dirty diapers had been lifted off our apartment. Each time I dragged him into our neighborhood baby gear store looking for a gift for one of the growing number of children being born to my friends, he would break out into hives while looking at books with titles like Finding a Preschool for Your Child in San Francisco and Finding a Nanny for Your Child in the San Francisco Bay Area, and inevitably he would storm out of the store to hyperventilate on the sidewalk outside. "We're not going to have a kid in this city," he'd say. "There's no way I'm going to deal with all that crap here."

It came as quite a shock to me, then, when one day in 2003, well over a year before I got pregnant, he came home with the newly-reissued Miroslav Sasek book, This is San Francisco, which at first he claimed to have purchased for the classic mid-century illustrations, but which he later admitted to buying so that one day our kids could read it and learn all about the city where their parents lived when they were young.

Today Juniper is sick. Her symptoms include a runny nose, general crabbiness, whining, all sorts of carrying on, crappy sleeping, and lots of complaining. The only weapon we seem to have against it all is reading books. It's the only thing that makes her forget how miserable she is, and so we spend hours reading the same ones, repeatedly caving to the dreaded, "Again? Again, please?" and starting from the beginning, over and over and over.

Last night Juniper finally got tired of her own favorites and toddled over to her bookshelves in search of something new. She eventually settled on This is San Francisco. It's a big book, and after she lugged it across the room over to my lap last night, I read it to her for the first time in many months, the first time when we weren't sitting in the middle of the city portrayed in the book. She was quiet and didn't protest at the lack of dogs or monkeys or babies, the way she had the last time I'd tried to read it to her. I assumed she was just tolerating it because the snot filling up every spare hole in her head made it hard for her to hear, but on the 5th page she interrupted me, pointing to a drawing of typical San Francisco houses lining a hilly, typical San Francisco street, and said: "Home?" On the next page, she pointed to another house and asked, "Mama dada, live?"

For the first time since we've moved here, it felt like someone had stolen my heartbeat, and I was overwhelmed with longing for San Francisco. The page featuring a drawing of Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park, where I reminded Juniper about how we used to feed the ducks after picking up coffee and bagels, reduced me to tears. In that moment I felt foolish for ever denying that I miss our old home. Co-workers and new friends have asked me so many times some permutation of the question of how could we ever leave San Francisco, don't we miss it, and wasn't it so much better than Detroit. I've shrugged those questions off every time, expressing mild irritation as I tried to explain my new love for this new city. Moving here was risky in so many ways, that I think I was afraid that even the smallest acknowledgment that San Francisco was a city well worth missing would be an acknowledgment of our worst fears: that moving here could be a mistake.

Now that we've been here for two months, I'm confident enough in our decision to move to Detroit that I can allow myself some space to miss San Francisco. Our well-worn apartment on 2nd Avenue was the place where my boyfriend turned into my husband, and after that, where we grew together from people terrified of accidentally becoming pregnant to the parents that we were both born to be.

No one commented last week on how pathetic we are for falling asleep every night on the couch at 11:00 p.m. Did I fail to mention that we usually fall asleep watching "Yo Momma," the Wilmer Valderrama vehicle on MTV where his decidedly un-gay, non foreign-exchange-student actual meathead self parades around the five boroughs looking for guys to make fun of each others' mommas. He'll end up with two guys from two different neighborhoods standing around in a MTVified version of the traditional dozens. The jokes are inevitably either so tired or rendered so nonsensical by the censors that I spend most of the time watching the show astonished that this Wilmer chump is the guy to whom Lindsay Lohan gave the delicate, fiery flower of her virginity. No matter what, the program is a great elixir for sleeplessness.

But last night I was awake on the couch while on the screen Wilmer held his palm to his mouth with his eyes saying, "Oh, I know he didn't just say that horrible thing about that other guy's mother," and there was the other guy's mother standing over there next to him, a plump target in hair curlers. Could she not take her hair curlers out before she went on MTV? I got to wondering, where was her outrage? Now that I'm a fucking mother, I take great offense to all that trash talking. I'm not "so stank" that "my shit is glad to escape out my ass." My shit is happy right where it is, thank you. Why haven't any mommybloggers taken Wilmer to task for perpetuating this heinous species of "humor"? Well, snap, if no one else is going to do it, I'm just going take on the fight myself. And in my corner in this very serious fight, I have the help of one man who don't take no jibba-jabba from none of those fools he pities. Please, for the love of mommas everywhere, watch Mr. T bring it:

In case those snazzily-dressed backup singers distracted you, these are the lyrics he's "rapping":

M is for the moan, and the miserable groan from the pain that she felt when I was bornO is for the oven with it's burnin' heat where she stood makin' sure I had something to eatT is for the time that she stayed up at night and took my temperature when I wasn't feelin' rightH is for the hard earned money she spent to keep clothes on my back and try to pay da' rentE is every wrinkle I put on her face and every worry that I caused when I stayed out lateThe last letter R is that she taught me Respect and for the room up in Heaven that I know she'll get.

Well, doesn't that just say it all? Hooray for mothers everywhere. There's even a remix. Remember kids, as Mr. T says, "When you put down one mother, you put down mothers all over the world."

Likelihood that Dutch would dine on Kraft macaroni & cheese with hot dog chunks on any given weekday while he was working as a corporate lawyer: 0 in 0.

Likelihood that Dutch dines on Kraft macaroni & cheese with hot dog chunks on any given weekday now that he is a stay-at-home dad: 1 in 3.

Average percentage change in the likelihood that Dutch will speak to you in an animated matter about how much better it is to use plain, full-fat yogurt rather than milk should you happen to bring up cooking Kraft macaroni & cheese now that he is a stay-at-home dad: 100.

Average number of frozen peas consumed by Juniper during the last three months (in pounds): 11.

Average percentage of those peas consumed uncooked (still frozen): 75.

Number of failed attempts Dutch has made to convince Juniper that edamame beans are actually "just big peas": 4.

Percentage of his former salary Dutch makes writing for blogging baby: 4.

Number of pages in Dutch's unfinished novel that he started writing in 2003: 646.

Number of pages long it probably should be: 323.

Number of pages he's written since starting this blog: 6.

Number of pages he's cut from the manuscript: 11.

Percentage likelihood that Dutch has a problem with self editing: 100.

Estimated percentage of visitors Dutch believes come to this site solely for the shadenfreudic value, or to marvel at what a dickhead he is: 28.

Percentage Wood thinks Dutch is full of shit when he expresses such concerns to her: 84.

Average number of times per day Dutch and Wood discuss shutting down this blog completely: 3.

Estimated chance that Dutch would see an individual selling heroin on his morning bus commute through the Tenderloin in San Francisco: 1/2.

Number of drug deals Dutch has seen in two months of living in downtown Detroit: 0.

Number of unconscious junkies the Junipers have encountered in Detroit: 0.

Estimated number of months Dutch believes it will take before he and Juniper discover a dead body in a pile of smelly clothes and paint cans in front of some graffiti-covered wall in Detroit: 4.

Likelihood that Dutch, Wood, and Juniper will move to the suburbs: 0.

Estimated percentage of readers of this site will think Dutch and Wood are sell outs for accepting advertising revenue: 90.

Estimated percentage who will think they are exploiting their child: 44.

Estimated percentage of readers Dutch believes will fill out this survey to show what cultured, intelligent, and savvy consumers they are, after he begs them to do it ("please, I beg you, fill out this survey. . .") : 22.

Number of slaps from the ol' cat o' nine tails Dutch will inflict upon himself in a brutal (but satisfying) self-flagellation session later this afternoon for even asking his readers to do this: 17.

Figures cited are the latest available as of November, 2006. Sources are Dutch's imagination.

I have a confession. Although I have complained about kids' music time and time again, even comparing most of it to, "a secret U.S. Army acoustic weapons system designed to paralyze and induce vomiting by all exposed to it," I do have this cassette tape that Juniper's old day care gave us to listen to at home so she would be familiar with the music at the weekly singalong. And I have been playing it in the car lately. A lot. At first I treated it like one of those little hammers in the "break only in case of emergency" boxes. But only an emergency turned into "only when she's screaming" which then turned into "only when she asks for that goddamn Dancing with Teddy song" which then turned into the tape being the default audio experience in our 4-door sedan. Wood and I went out for dinner without Juniper on Saturday night and we drove two miles before we realized we were still listening to that fucking tape. And we were fucking humming along with it.

But that's not the worst of it. Yesterday was an unusually warm and pleasant November day, and Juniper and I were driving with the windows halfway down on Detroit's east side. At a stoplight two young black dudes rolled to a slow stop next to me, their chrome-plated rims shaped to look like the barrel of a revolver were spinning long after their car had ceased forward motion, and from the trunk of their car two enormous speakers were blasting a bass-heavy rap song, the only lyrics of which seemed to be, "Scared motherfucker? Then call the police. . .Scared motherfucker? Then call the police." This, by itself, did not bother me. In high school I had driven a friend to "a fat girl's house" so he could "get some pussy" in my 1990 Pontiac Grand Prix with the one gray fender and he put an MC Breed cassette in my Kenwood deck, but the only lyric on the whole album seemed to be, "it's just another nigga to my AK. . .it's just another nigga to my AK." That made me uncomfortable. These guys turned to look at me through their backseat passenger window and I nodded, feeling pretty out-macho'd just by virtue of their ride. Then the driver of the car leaned forward and turned his stereo' volume down, and all you could hear was the music coming from my car stereo at an unexpectedly high volume:

I would have reached for the volume knob myself, but that would have sent Juniper into a whiny chorus of "more Jumpin-n-Josie? more Jumpin-n-Josie?" So I just shrugged my shoulders, and before I could offer them some of our pruno, their stereo was blasting even louder than before and the light had turned green, and they were squealing their tires to get away from us. Now who's scared, motherfuckers?

The urchin costume was still in the closet, and it still fit her. Could I really resist?

Well over a year ago I articulated my totally annoying elitist-asshole position on Juniper and television here. I asked, with a certain very-punchable naivete, whether Juniper would ever love watching Charlie Chaplin movies with me. Well, for the first and probably the last time in our lives, Juniper and I have the same favorite movie: Charlie Chaplin's The Kid. She asks for it every morning. Some days we watch the entire thing together. When I pick her up and swing her around the room she screams, "fly like Chachi!" referring, I think, to the "dreamland" sequence at the end of the film when the Tramp wakes to find himself in heaven, and "flies" about the tenement courtyard with the kid on wires while wearing angel wings and white robes. Her idol is the kid, played by Jackie Coogan, who starred in dozens of movies typecast as a street urchin. When he was middle-aged he played Uncle Fester on the Addams Family series.

So when I found a pair of fairy wings at the dollar store next to the wig store down the street, I knew I could put together a costume that she and I both would love:

She just kept shouting "kid, wings!" and made me fly her up and down the alleys where we were walking down by the Detroit River during the day on Halloween. The only moments she grew pensive were when I put her down to take a picture. I took a lot of them.

When we got home from trick-or-treating in the Summers' dream neighborhood last evening, and after we'd tackled all the houses in our Detroit neighborhood that were giving out candy, we brought Juniper into our house, her makeup smudged and mostly gone, and we stood her on the bathroom counter facing the mirror. "Who's that?" we asked.

"Juney Panda!" she shouted, and did a little dance and cackle. This was the inspiration for the costume her mother made for her, and she clutched it in her hand all day in anticipation of being a panda.

Earlier in the day I'd set her in front of the mirror with another costume (I'll write about that one later this week) and she stood there and laughed with such joy when she realized who she was dressed to be. For Wood and I, this Halloween dredged up all kinds of memories after that long interlude of slutty and ironic Halloweens. The holiday is such a wonderful chance for kids to use their imagination. There was such joy emanating from all the kids. I was a little worried about Max, though. I was concerned that all that joy was going to start shooting through his skin and do to the other children what the Ark of the Covenant did to that creepy Nazi at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

There was just something about being out with Juniper after dark in dancing flashlights, holding her little paw up the walkways onto the porches and into the province of strangers, teaching her there is one day where it is perfectly acceptable to accept candy from strangers and stare into their foyers and living rooms, inspect the art on their walls and imagine, for a second, what their lives are like and how different things would be if that was your house, hearing her say "trick or treat" and then, "tank you," while watching candy drop into her pumpkin. It was what it should be, after all.